With the coronavirus lockdown, parents and carers are having to help their children learn remotely. Young people will also be turning to their parents, carers or guardians for career support.

This is a challenging time for parents, especially for those with children in their final year of school. The attached Careermag for Parents may be able to help.

It includes labour market information and qualification routes so teenagers can seek guidance from their parents to make well informed decisions on their futures. Parents have always been big influences on young people’s decisions. Given the current pandemic, they will play even more of a role on their teenagers’ options.

We are in regular contact with the Tour operator and are hopeful that the trip next year will continue to go ahead as planned.

The next instalment is currently due. However, given the current situation, we have decided to offer families the flexibility to delay this payment until September. Hopefully, by this time we will have a better understanding of what is happening.

We will keep you updated as and when we get any further information.

We understand that this is a difficult time for all of us so if you have any concerns or questions regarding the trip please don’t hesitate in contacting us.

Thank you to those of you who have replied to the survey letting us know that you will need childcare next week. This means we now have a reasonable idea of numbers and can plan accordingly.

You will appreciate that these plans are very much subject to change, but a few points just for the moment for those of you intending to send children in:

Most importantly, we beg you to follow government advice and only send children into school if there really is no alternative at all. The whole point of school closures is to avoid social contact wherever possible. Any individual who sends their child into school when it is not absolutely necessary is, quite literally, risking the lives of other people in our community. We will be looking at the circumstances of each student this week and really want to avoid too many awkward conversations with parents where we can see it was not essential to send children into school. For example, we would expect most children from older year groups to be able to look after themselves at home for the majority of the time.

Similarly, no child should be sent into school if they are displaying any symptoms of the Covid virus – i.e. a continuous cough or any signs of a temperature.

That said, we are taking our duty to support vulnerable children and those of key workers extremely seriously. The response of staff at school has been magnificent and we all want to do our bit to ensure those of you who really do need to be in work to keep the country going can get in. Please therefore let us know if it would make a difference to you if, for example, we put on some kind of provision at the weekends and/or before and after school. Email any such requests to my PA, Helena Headon (hheadon@lymmhigh.org.uk). I cannot promise anything at this stage but we will do our best to support this if more than one or two of you need it.

As things stand, school buses will run more or less as normal – with one or two ‘duplicate’ services removed. Please click here for the slightly revised timetable (the services highlighted in yellow will not be running) We believe that this will continue but will obviously let you know if anything changes.

Students should come in wearing school uniform tomorrow. This may change.

Please note that our primary concern is to provide childcare rather than education. What exactly we do is still being planned, but we will likely still follow a structure similar to that of a normal day.

We will be encouraging students to practise hand hygiene and social distancing. However, please understand that it is not realistic to be able to guarantee that students are kept 2 metres apart from one another all of the time. Please help to support by talking to your children about the importance of these measures.

We are aiming for physical activity, outside if possible, every day. Therefore, students should bring PE kit with them everyday. They can keep it in school if they wish.

If you are intending to drop students off and/or pick them up at times that are different to the normal school day, then please make sure you let us know by emailing Student Services (StudentServices@lymmhigh.org.uk) Otherwise, we shall assume your child will be in between 8.20am-3.10pm.

I hope this provides sufficient information for the time being, but please contact Mrs Headon with any urgent enquires.